When I read Alastair Merrill’s post from earlier today regarding the new European Procurement Directives that are likely to be adopted this autumn, there were many points that were notable. One of the changes that caught my attention was Alastair’s reference to innovation partnerships.
In and of itself, the concept of leveraging private sector expertise and resources to develop goods, services or works that cannot be met by solutions already available on the market, is nothing new. That being said it is the priority that the Directives are expected to give to the development of innovative solutions in a long term partnership between a public body and a supplier that is noteworthy.
In this context, I thought that it would a good idea to revisit a series of posts I wrote for the Procurement Insights blog back in 2011 regarding Procurement Contests to determine what if any elements of what is being done here in North America will find its way overseas.
The basic idea of a procurement contest — sometimes called a prize or challenge — is to set out a performance requirement for a capability that needs development work and offer a prize, usually money, for the first or best entity to produce a product or capability meeting the requirement.
from the Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech August 15th, 2011 article Procurement contests pooh-poohed by an unlikely source
In this 3-Part Series I examine the procurement contest concept in greater detail, including citing actual case study examples such as the one involving Denver, Colorado-based Alpine Energy Group which spent four years and I am certain a great deal of money to walk away empty handed from a government incineration project right here in my own backyard.
Are procurement contests a viable (and equitable) acquisition tool for the government? After reading the posts let me know what you think?
September 1st, 2011 – Part 3 (Government procurement contests (Part 3): A question of (IP) ownership)
August 31st, 2011 – Part 2 (Government procurement contests (Part 2): When innovative ideas collide . . .)
August 30th, 2011 – Part 1 (Are procurement contests just another way for government to pass the innovation buck to a preferred outside vendor?)
Click to read Alastair Merrill’s post . . .
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Procurement Insights 
Market Dojo
September 4, 2013
Thanks Jon, a very interesting series of articles
I think any contest is going to have winners and losers. The Alpine Energy case study seems to be a particularly high stakes game, but there are also ways of working with suppliers without requiring such large investment (for example they may have existing technologies which the buyer is not aware of).
What is encouraging is that governments are recognising the need for innovation collaboration and legislating accordingly. It seems likely that this type of partnership will become more and more important in the future.
piblogger
September 4, 2013
Thank you fir your comment Market Dojo. The key is success rests in the structure and management of the relationship between stakeholders. How do you see this element of the process working?
Market Dojo
September 6, 2013
I agree – the relationship is key.
I wish I had all the answers on how to make those work, but I believe that some important aspects are
– All parties needs to have a clear and realistic vision of what they want
– They also need to have a good understanding of what the other party is expecting
To achieve this, communication is vital.